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Theda Bara

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Theda Bara
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(born July 20, 1885?, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. — died April 7, 1955, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. film actress. She had a brief stage career before going to Hollywood. Her first major picture, A Fool There Was (1915), was accompanied by a publicity campaign, billing her as the daughter of a Middle Eastern potentate, that made her an instant success. Establishing a sultry, exotic persona, she became the prototype of the screen "vamp." She made more than 40 films within a few years, but her popularity soon declined, and she retired in the 1920s.

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Dictionary: Bar·a   (băr'ə) pronunciation, Theda
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1890?-1955.

American actress of the silent film era. She appeared in sensational, highly publicized films, including Cleopatra (1917) and Salome (1918).


The Vampire Book: Theda Bara (1889-1955)
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Theda Bara is best known as the silent movie star who brought the character of the vamp, the woman who used her allure to attach herself to a man and seduce and destroy him, to the silver screen. Bara was born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was an immigrant from Eastern Europe and her mother a wigmaker of French/German descent. She grew up in the prosperous Jewish community in the Avondale section of the city. She was drawn to acting at an early age and was a member of the drama club in high school. After two years at the University of Cincinnati, she dropped out, moved to New York, and became a stage actress.

In 1914, with her career stagnant, she met movie director Frank Powell. He obtained for her a first part as an extra in a now lost film, The Stain but by the end of the year she had been cast as the villainess in the Fox Company's new film, A Fool There Was. It was shot at the Fox Studio in Ft. Lee, New Jersey, while Theda lived in New York. The play with which the film began, inspired by a Rudyard Kipling poem, "The Vampire," was written by Porter Emerson Browne. It opened in New York in 1909 to critical and popular acclaim. The film version made Goodman, reborn as Theda Bara, a star. She played the vampire who destroyed the life of an American diplomat. William Fox may have decided to bank his future on the film because of the success of another recent film with a similar theme, The Vampire, released by the Kalem Film Company.

The uniqueness of A Fool There Was rested not so much with its originality as with the publicity program created by Fox. To sell the film with the unknown star, a fictional biography of Theda Bara was created and presented in a press conference in January 1915. She was described as an Arabian actress and came before the reporters in a fur-bedecked coat. After the press conference, a young Louella Parsons was granted a brief few minutes with Theda who confessed to the charade. Parsons sucked up the exclusive, a leak planned all along by Fox's publicity men. The day after the newspapers published the press account, Parsons released her exclusive, and the planned leak turned Theda into one of the most talked-about women in the country, and the movie had not yet opened.

A Fool There Was became one of the highest-grossing films of 1915. It was introduced by a live actor who read Kipling's poem. The critics praised Theda as a great actress and the film for not giving in to demands for a happy ending. While Fox searched for other films for his new star, he assigned Bara to a role in her second movie, The Kreutzer Sonata. She again played a wicked woman who stole the husband of another woman. She did not get away with it this time, however, and the wife eventually killed her. Her third film, The Clemenceau Case could also be classified as a vamp movie and was enormously successful. Theda was being praised by critics, drawing large audiences, and becoming the target of moral critics who were calling for the banning of her films.

While filming her fourth movie, The Devil's Daughter, the nickname she had picked up around the set, "Vamp," was mentioned to a reporter. He used it, and it became the common way to describe Theda and the roles in which she was being cast. As she played the part to reporters at press conferences, the publicity scripts became more involved and eventually suggested she was a reincarnation of some famous wicked ladies such as Lucretia Borgia or Elizabeth Bathory.

While Theda received good reviews for her next film, The Two Orphans, in which she played a heroine, it was a flop at the box office due in large part to Fox's pulling the publicity budget. Fox wanted her to return to the vamping. The next film was a gangster movie with the made-for-Theda title Sin. The Fox publicity camp went to work calling the nation to "Sin with Theda Bara." Sin was a great success in spite of being banned in several states.

Over the next several years Theda starred in a host of films (without dialogue to worry about, the production time on films was relatively short), and while she played a variety of roles, she continually returned to the vamp role of which her audiences yearned. Her star status earned her leads in more impressive films such as Carmen, Camille, and CleopatraTheda's vamp image permeated the popular culture and inspired a number of songs (mostly comedies) such as "The Vamp," " I'm a Jazz Vampire," "Since Sarah Saw Theda Bara," and "Sally Green, the Village Vamp," as well as a new dance, The Vampire Walk. However, from the heights of stardom, after only five years, in 1919 her career began to wane. Theda was assigned to a series of bad films and her drawing power dropped seriously. In attempting to change her image, she starred as an Irish lass in Kathleen Mavourneen, which received good reviews but turned into a disaster. It was rejected by the Irish because it portrayed the poverty in the old country and because Theda, a Jew, starred as an Irish girl. Angry theater patrons set off stink bombs and riots.

Theda left Fox in 1920 and found herself at age 35 a largely unmarketable commodity. While she made several movies during the 1920s, her career was obviously over, and after Madame Mystery in 1926, she never returned to the movies (although she did appear on the stage occasionally). She lived a long life in her Beverly Hills home, remembered to her death as the original vamp. She died in Hollywood in 1955.

Golden, Eva. Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara. Vestal, NY: Emprise Publishing, 1996. 273 pp.

Actor: Theda Bara
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  • Born: Jul 20, 1885 in Cincinnati, Ohio
  • Died: Apr 07, 1955 in Los Angeles, California
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: teens
  • Major Genres: Drama, Romance
  • Career Highlights: Cleopatra, Camille
  • First Major Screen Credit: Camille (1917)

Biography

Although publicized as an Egyptian of royal lineage, silent film actress Theda Bara was actually born Theodosia Goodman in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her exotic good looks brought her to the attention of Fox studios in 1914; reasoning that there were too many sweet little ingenues in films of that period, Fox decided to create a worldly "vamp" character, a woman who could destroy men with little more than a sexy glance. The studio changed Theodosia's name to Theda Bara (which coincidentally was an anagram for "Arab Death"), casting her in a liberal adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's A Fool There Was(1914). She became Fox's biggest star, appearing in as many as ten feature films per year, including Salome (1918) and Cleopatra (1918). Her somewhat overripe histrionics became out of fashion by 1920, so she retired from acting to married life; Bara resurfaced in a "so bad it's good" Broadway play The Blue Flame, then made an unsuccessful film comeback attempt in 1925. Her last screen work was in a two-reel lampoon of her vamp character, Madame Mystery (1926), directed by, of all people, Stan Laurel. Though happily married and fabulously wealthy, Bara never gave up the dream that she might someday return to screen glory; at the time of her death in 1955, Hollywood's casting service directories still listed the actress as "at liberty." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Theda Bara
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Theda Bara

Theda Bara
Born Theodosia Burr Goodman
July 29, 1885(1885-07-29)
Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Died April 13, 1955 (aged 69)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other name(s) The Vamp
Years active 1908–1926
Spouse(s) Charles Brabin (1921–1955)

Theda Bara (July 29, 1885 – April 13, 1955), born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American silent film actress. Bara was one of the most popular screen actresses of her era, and was one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" (short for vampire). The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman. Bara, along with Broadway turned film actress Valeska Suratt, and the French film actress Musidora, popularized the vamp persona in the early years of silent film and was soon imitated by rival actresses such as Louise Glaum, Nita Naldi and Pola Negri.

Contents

Birth

Theodosia Burr Goodman was born in 1885 in the Avondale section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father was Bernard Goodman (1853–1936),[1] a prosperous Jewish tailor born in Poland. Her mother, Pauline Louise de Coppett (1861–1957), was born in Switzerland and was also Jewish. Bernard and Pauline married in 1882.

Theda's brother and sister were Marque (1888–1954)[2] and Esther (1897–1965),[1] who also became a film actress under the name Lori Bara and married Francis W. Getty of London in 1920.

The origin of Bara's stage name is somewhat murky; The Guiness Book of Movie Facts and Feats says it came from director Frank Powell, who learned Theda had a relative named Barranger. At the time, many thought the name was taken from an anagram of "Arab Death".

In 1917 the Goodman family legally changed its surname to "Bara".[3]

Education

She attended Walnut Hills High School from 1899 to 1903 and lived at 823 Hutchins Avenue. After attending the University of Cincinnati for two years, she worked in theater productions mainly but did explore other projects, moving to New York City in 1908. She made her Broadway debut in The Devil (1908).

Career

Theda Bara in the title role as Cleopatra (1917)

Theda Bara made more than 40 feature films between 1914 and 1926. Complete prints of only six of these films still exist. Most of Bara's films were produced by William Fox, beginning with A Fool There Was (1915) and ending with The Lure of Ambition (1919). The phenomenal success of A Fool There Was gave William Fox the money to found Fox Film Corporation, while the ensuing films helped to make Fox a successful studio.

At the height of her fame, Bara was making $4,000 per week for her film performances. She was one of the most famous movie stars, ranking behind only Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford in popularity.[4] Bara's best-known and most popular roles were as "vamp" characters, although she attempted to avoid being typecast by playing more wholesome heroines in films such as Under Two Flags and Her Double Life. She also appeared as Juliet in a version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Although Bara took her craft seriously, she was too successful as an exotic "wanton woman" to develop a more versatile career.

Most of Bara's early films were shot on the East Coast, primarily at the Fox studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Bara lived with her mother and siblings in New York City during this time. The rise of Hollywood as the center of the American film industry forced her to relocate to Los Angeles to film the epic Cleopatra (1917). This film became one of Bara's biggest hits. No known prints of Cleopatra exist today, but numerous photographs of Bara in costume as the Queen of the Nile have survived.

Between 1915 and 1919, Bara was promoted heavily by Fox, and was the studio's biggest star. When the studio lessened their support, her career suffered. Bara, tired of being typecast as a vamp, allowed her five-year contract with Fox to expire. Her final film for Fox was The Lure of Ambition (1919). She left Fox and did not make another film until The Unchastened Woman (1925) for Chadwick Pictures Corporation. Bara retired after making only one more film, the short comedy Madame Mystery (1926), made for Hal Roach, in which she parodied her vamp image.

Theda Bara is most famous for having a higher percentage of lost films than any other actor/actress with a Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame. A 1937 fire at Fox's nitrate film storage vaults in New Jersey destroyed most of that studio's silent films. Out of her 40 films, 3 remain completely intact. Cleopatra (almost completely lost, 40 seconds remain), Du Barry, Carmen, Salome, and Camille are among the lost. Fortunately, A Fool There Was is preserved in a complete print. Madame Mystery is preserved in a 9.5 mm print which runs 21 minutes, which may be an abridged version for home viewing.[5]

She is also one of the most famous completely silent stars. Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, although mostly silent, were filmed in sound, and none of their sound films have been lost. Bara was never filmed in sound, lost or otherwise.

Sex symbol

Theda Bara in one of her famous risqué costumes, this one in Cleopatra (1917). Bara was and still is well known for wearing very revealing costumes in her films, which were very controversial for their time, and can still be considered risqué by today's standards, more than 90 years later.

Bara is often cited as the first sex symbol[6] of that era, and in a number of her films appeared in risqué transparent costumes that left little to the imagination.[7] Such outfits were banned from Hollywood films after the Production Code started in 1930, and then was more strongly enforced in 1934.

Bara was photographed in several sittings in skimpy Oriental-themed costumes. It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious and elusive, with an exotic background. The studios promoted Bara with a massive publicity campaign, billing her as the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor. They claimed she had spent her early years in the Sahara Desert under the shadow of the Sphinx, then moved to France to become a stage actress. (In fact, Bara had never even been to Egypt or France.) They called her the "Serpent of the Nile" and encouraged Bara to discuss mysticism and the occult in interviews. Some film historians point to the excessive handling of Bara, with its over-the-top misrepresentations about the star, as the birth of two new Hollywood phenomena: the studio publicity department and the press agent, which would later evolve into the public relations person.

At the height of Bara's fame, her vamp image was notorious enough to be referred to in popular songs of the day. The lyrics of "Red-Hot Hannah" said: "I know things that Theda Bara's just startin' to learn / Make my dresses from asbestos, I'm liable to burn...." The song, "Rebecca Came Back From Mecca", contains the lyrics "She's as bold as Theda Bara / Theda's bare but Becky's bare-er", The song "If I had a man like Valentino" contains the chorus lyric, "Theda Bara sure would die / She would never roll another eye".

Marriage and retirement

Bara married British-born American film director Charles Brabin (1883–1957) in 1921. Her film career soon began to slow down, finally ending with the comedy Madame Mystery made for Hal Roach in 1926. The following year, Bara made a successful but much maligned appearance on Broadway in The Blue Flame.

Though she subsequently expressed interest in returning to the stage or screen, her husband did not consider it proper for his wife to have a career. She did make at least three interview appearances on radio from Hollywood: on the June 8, 1936 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater; as a guest on NBC's For Men Only on March 7, 1939; and on CBS, November 8, 1939.

Bara spent the remainder of her life as a hostess in Hollywood and New York, in comfort and relative wealth. Producer Buddy DeSylva and Columbia Pictures expressed interest in 1949 in making a movie biography of her life, to star Betty Hutton, but the project never materialized.[8]

Death

Bara died of stomach cancer in 1955 in Los Angeles, California, and was interred as Theda Bara Brabin in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her death certificate incorrectly listed her birthdate as "July 22, 1892."

Legacy

Theda Bara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1994, she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. In June 1996, two biographies appeared, Ron Genini's Theda Bara: A Biography (McFarland) and Eve Golden's Vamp (Emprise). In October 2005 TimeLine Films of Culver City premiered a film biography, Theda Bara: The Woman With the Hungry Eyes. A film by British video artist Georgina Starr titled Theda based around Bara's lost films premiered in London in November 2006.[9]

The Fort Lee Film Commission dedicated Main Street and Linwood Avenue in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as "Theda Bara Way" in May 2006 to honor Bara, who made many of her films at the Fox Studio on Linwood and Main.

Theda Bara's image has been the symbol of the Chicago International Film Festival. A stark, black and white close up of her eyes set as repeated frames in a strip of film serves as the logo for the nonprofit festival.

Of silent stars Theda Bara is usually cited as an example of someone with a high percentage of lost films. Only 4 of her features exist including The Stain (1914), A Fool There Was (1915), East Lynne (1916), The Unchastened Woman (1925), and 2 short comedies for Hal Roach. In addition to these a few of her films remain in fragments including Cleopatra (just a few seconds of footage), The Soul of Buddah, and a few other unidentified clips featured in a french documentary, Theda Bara et William Fox (2001). Most of the clips can be seen in the documentary The Woman with the Hungry Eyes (2006).

Filmography

Note: Extant films are indicated by a ‡

Year Film Role Notes
1914 The Stain ‡ Gang moll A print of the film was discovered in Australia in the 1990s.
1915 A Fool There Was ‡ The Vamp
The Kreutzer Sonata Celia Friedlander The film is now considered to be lost.
The Clemenceau Case Iza The film is now considered to be lost.
The Devil's Daughter La Gioconda The film is now considered to be lost.
Lady Audley's Secret Helen Talboys
The Two Orphans Henriette The film is now considered to be lost.
Sin Rosa The film is now considered to be lost.
Carmen Carmen The film is now considered to be lost.
The Galley Slave Francesca Brabaut The film is now considered to be lost.
Destruction Fernade The film is now considered to be lost.
1916 The Serpent Vania Lazar The film is now considered to be lost.
Gold and the Woman Theresa Decordova The film is now considered to be lost.
The Eternal Sapho Laura Bruffins The film is now considered to be lost.
East Lynne ‡ Lady Isabel Carlisle A print of this film survives in the film archive of the Museum of Modern Art.
Under Two Flags Cigarette The film is now considered to be lost.
Her Double Life Mary Doone The film is now considered to be lost.
Romeo and Juliet Juliet The film is now considered to be lost.
The Vixen Elsie Drummond The film is now considered to be lost.
1917 The Darling of Paris Esmeralda A very loose adaptation of the novel Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo
The film is now considered to be lost.
The Tiger Woman Princess Petrovitch The film is now considered to be lost.
Her Greatest Love Hazel The film is now considered to be lost.
Heart and Soul Jess The film is now considered to be lost.
Camille Marguerite Gauthier[10] The film is considered lost.
Cleopatra Cleopatra Approximately 40 seconds exist at George Eastman House
The Rose of Blood Lisza Tapenka The film is now considered to be lost.
Madame Du Barry Jeanne Vaubernier The film is now considered to be lost.
1918 The Forbidden Path Mary Lynde The film is now considered to be lost.
The Soul of Buddha Priestess The film is now considered to be lost.
Under the Yoke Maria Valverda The film is now considered to be lost.
Salome Salome The film is now considered to be lost.
When a Woman Sins Lilian Marchard / Poppea The film is now considered to be lost.
The She Devil Lorette The film is now considered to be lost.
1919 The Light Blanchette Dumond, aka Madame Lefresne
When Men Desire Marie Lohr
The Siren's Song Marie Bernais
A Woman There Was Princess Zara
Kathleen Mavourneen Kathleen Cavanagh
La Belle Russe Fleurett Sackton / La Belle Russe
The Lure of Ambition Olga Dolan
1925 The Unchastened Woman ‡ Caroline Knollys
1926 Madame Mystery ‡ Madame Mysterieux
45 Minutes from Hollywood ‡ Herself

References

  1. ^ a b New York Times
  2. ^ "Marque Bara", Newport Daily News (Newport, Rhode Island), April 26, 1954, p. 2.
  3. ^ "Theda Makes 'em All Baras. Actress's Family Join Her in Dropping Name of Goodman". New York Times. November 17, 1917. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9905E6DA113AE433A25754C1A9679D946696D6CF. Retrieved 2008-07-20. "Actress's Family Join Her in Dropping Name of Goodman. Theda Bara, actress, and all the members of her family got permission yesterday from ..." 
  4. ^ http://oncotton.co.uk/starr/documents/THEDAprogramme&PDF.pdf
  5. ^ Silent Era : The silent film website
  6. ^ Classic Images - Vol. 250 - April 1996 Issue
  7. ^ Theda Bara Photo Gallery - Bombshells.Com
  8. ^ Thomas F. Brady, "De Sylva Working on Movie of Bara", New York Times, January 21, 1949, p. 25. Hedda Hopper (column), The Washington Post, August 21, 1949, p. L1. Hedda Hopper (column), The Washington Post, October 23, 1949, p. L1. Thomas F. Brady, "Betty Hutton Set for 2 Metro Films", New York Times, December 2, 1949, p. 36.
  9. ^ Georgina Starr
  10. ^ "Theda Bara Makes 'Camille' Reality". Hartford Courant. October 30, 1917. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/828058332.html?dids=828058332:828058332&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&date=Oct+30%2C+1917&author=&pub=The+Hartford+Courant&desc=THEDA+BARA+MAKES+%27CAMILLE%27+REALITY&pqatl=google. Retrieved 2008-07-20. "Heralded as one of the screen triumphs of the day, "Camille," adapted from the Dumas novel, and with Theda Bara the featured player, fulfills the promises of the management of Poli's Theater, where this film really heads the bill this half of the week. Vaudeville must..." 

Further reading

  • Shakespeare on Silent Film: An Excellent Dumb Discourse by Judith Buchanan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Chapter 6. ISBN 0-521871999.
  • The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era by David W. Menefee. Albany: Bear Manor Media, 2007. ISBN 0-275-98259-9.
  • Eve Golden (1996). Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara. Emprise. ISBN 1-887322-00-0. 
  • Ronald Genini (1996). Theda Bara: A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, with a Filmography. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0202-4. 
  • Famous Juliets. By Jerome Hart, in Motion Picture Classic, March, 1923.
  • A Million and One Nights. By Terry Ramsaye. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1926.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
The Vampire Book. The Vampire Book. 1999 ©Visible Ink Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
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Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Theda Bara".  Read more

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